Other Stuff

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

"If I did have a tumor, I'd name it Marla. " (Fight Club)

When we bought a condo, three and a half years ago, we never thought we'd have issues with a neighbour like we do now. As you may recall, I've vented a few time about a neighbour who leaves our (common) garage door open. That is the same neighbour who also flooded us after the pipes froze (due to a garage door left opened). Since there was a repetitive issue with him forgetting to close the door, I've been keeping a list of all the "infractions". We've tried reminding him politely, sending him emails, calling him, rang his door a few times. He was always apologetic, but still would forget to close the darn door.

We live in Montreal. The weather does get cold here. Pipes do freeze in winter. I'm not even mentioning the fact we have direct access to our condo from the garage. The pot of issues has been on the stove for a while now, it's been simmering and today it boiled. Hard.

On Monday morning when leaving for work, we noticed the door was opened. It had been opened long enough for the thermostat to go down to zero. Hubby got mad. He wrote an email to the neighbour rattling his cage a little; he remained polite and was somewhat arrogant. The neighbour did not like that at all. Thus it began...

Tonight, when Hubby got home he was welcomed with an opened garage door once again. He was then quite upset (to say the least). He sent yet another email to the neighbour in which he wasn't so polite. He just called him an idiot, really. He had written worst, but I managed to get him to 'tone' it down a little... (imagine that, me!). The email response of neighbour was less than polite; he was rattled, that's for sure.

This is not a situation I like being in. Next house, I want to be alone, so if a damn door is left open or if it's raining in our dinning room it will be because we left the door open or the faucet running. This is ridiculous. I have heard of horror stories between neigbours, but never thought I'd be part of one. I don't want it to escalade. I just want peace and quiet. And a closed garage door!
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Do you not have an automatic garage door opener, or do you have one that the neighbor turns off for some reason? It you don't have one, maybe you and your neighbor could split the cost of having one installed, then the door will close automatically a couple of minutes after it's opened.

flurrious: We do have an automatic door opener, but we need to close it after (by clicking a button, the same way we clicked to open). For the size of our garage (2 cars) they don't install auto closing (for safety reason?!) - trust me, we've looked into it!

Robert: The admin of the condo association won't do anything other than send him registered letters telling him to correct the situation. We've already met with a real estate guy yesterday... Time to change location!